HOME /

Energy & Grid

Shi Chen, Xi Lu, Yufei Miao, Yu Deng, Chris P. Nielsen, Noah Elbot, Yuanchen Wang, Kathryn G. Logan, Michael B. McElroy, and Jiming Hao. 2019. “The potential of photovoltaics to power the Belt and Road Initiative.” Joule, 3, Pp. 1-18. Publisher's VersionAbstract
graphic summary
Joule full paper.pdf
Construction of carbon-intensive energy infrastructure is well underway under the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), challenging the global climate target. Regionally abundant solar power could provide an alternative for electricity generation. An integrative spatial model was developed to evaluate the technical potential of solar photovoltaic power. The influence of impacting factors was quantified systematically on an hourly basis. Results suggest that the electricity potential for the BRI region reaches 448.9 PWh annually, 41.3 times the regional demand for electricity in 2016. Tapping 3.7% of the potential through deploying 7.8 TW capacity could satisfy the regional electricity demand projected for 2030, requiring an investment of approximately 11.2 trillion 2017 USD and a commitment in land area of 88,426 km2, approximately 0.9% of China’s total. Countries endowed with 70.7% of the overall potential consume only 30.1% of regional electricity. The imbalance underscores the advantage of regional cooperation and investments in interconnected grids.
graphic summary

Solar energy could turn the Belt and Road Initiative green

June 27, 2019

News release issued by Cell Press

The region covered by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has significant potential to be powered by solar energy, researchers report June 27 in the journal Joule. Less than 4 percent of the maximum solar potential of the region could meet the BRI's electricity demand for 2030. The research suggests a possible solution to reduce BRI countries' need for fossil fuels as they develop. This is the first time the renewable energy potential of the region is...

Read more about Solar energy could turn the Belt and Road Initiative green
Hongjian Wei, Wenzhi Liu, Xinyu Chen, Qing Yang, Jiashuo Li, and Hanping Chen. 2019. “Renewable bio-jet fuel production for aviation: a review.” Fuel, 254. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions and high dependence on traditional petroleum jet fuel, the sustainable development of the aviation industry has drawn increasing attention worldwide. One of the most promising strategies is to develop and industrialize alternative aviation fuels produced from renewable resources, e.g. biomass. Renewable bio-jet fuel has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions over their life cycle, which make bio-jet fuels an attractive substitution for aviation fuels. This paper provided an overview on the conversion technologies, economic assessment, environmental influence and development status of bio-jet fuels. The results suggested that hydrogenated esters and fatty acids, and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis can be the most promising technologies for bio-jet fuels production in near term. Future works, such as searching for more suitable feedstock, improving competitiveness for alternative jet fuels, meeting emission reduction targets in large-scale production and making measures for the indirect impact are needed for further investigation. The large-scale deployment of bio-jet fuels could achieve significant potentials of both bio-jet fuels production and CO2 emissions reduction based on future available biomass feedstock.

2019 Jun 01

CCICED Annual Meeting

Sat Jun 1 (All day) to Wed Jun 5 (All day)

Location: 

Hangzhou International Expo Center, Zhejiang Province, China

China Project faculty chair, Michael McElroy, who has been appointed to the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) for a 5-year term, and Executive Director, Chris Nielsen, will be participating in the ...

Read more about CCICED Annual Meeting
Xi Lu, Liang Cao, Haikun Wang, Wei Peng, Jia Xing, Shuxiao Wang, Siyi Cai, Bo Shen, Qing Yang, Chris P. Nielsen, and Michael B. McElroy. 2019. “Gasification of coal and biomass as a net carbon-negative power source for environment-friendly electricity generation in China.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Publisher's VersionAbstract
PNAS paper.pdf
Realizing the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 2 °C by the end of this century will most likely require deployment of carbon-negative technologies. It is particularly important that China, as the world’s top carbon emitter, avoids being locked into carbon-intensive, coal-fired power-generation technologies and undertakes a smooth transition from high- to negative-carbon electricity production. We focus here on deploying a combination of coal and biomass energy to produce electricity in China using an integrated gasification cycle system combined with carbon capture and storage (CBECCS). Such a system will also reduce air pollutant emissions, thus contributing to China’s near-term goal of improving air quality. We evaluate the bus-bar electricity-generation prices for CBECCS with mixing ratios of crop residues varying from 0 to 100%, as well as associated costs for carbon mitigation and cobenefits for air quality. We find that CBECCS systems employing a crop residue ratio of 35% could produce electricity with net-zero life-cycle emissions of greenhouse gases, with a levelized cost of electricity of no more than 9.2 US cents per kilowatt hour. A carbon price of approximately $52.0 per ton would make CBECCS cost-competitive with pulverized coal power plants. Therefore, our results provide critical insights for designing a CBECCS strategy in China to harness near-term air-quality cobenefits while laying the foundation for achieving negative carbon emissions in the long run.
Xingning Han, Xinyu Chen, Michael B. McElroy, Shiwu Liao, Chris P. Nielsen, and Jinyu Wen. 2019. “Modeling formulation and validation for accelerated simulation and flexibility assessment on large scale power systems under higher renewable penetrations.” Applied Energy, 237, Pp. 145-154. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Deploying high penetration of variable renewables represents a critical pathway for decarbonizing the power sector. Hydro power (including pumped-hydro), batteries, and fast responding thermal units are essential in providing system flexibility at elevated renewable penetration. How to quantify the merit of flexibility from these sources in accommodating variable renewables, and to evaluate the operational costs considering system flexibility constraints have been central challenges for future power system planning. This paper presents an improved linear formulation of the unit commitment model adopting unit grouping techniques to expedite evaluation of the curtailment of renewables and operational costs for large-scale power systems. All decision variables in this formulation are continuous, and all chronological constraints are formulated subsequently. Tested based on actual data from a regional power system in China, the computational speed of the model is more than 20,000 times faster than the rigorous unit commitment model, with less than 1% difference in results. Hourly simulation for an entire year takes less than 3 min. The results demonstrate strong potential to apply the proposed model to long term planning related issues, such as flexibility assessment, wind curtailment analysis, and operational cost evaluation, which could set a methodological foundation for evaluating the optimal combination of wind, solar and hydro investments.
2019 Mar 07

China and Asia in a Changing Climate: Natural Science for the Non-Scientist

12:15pm to 1:45pm

Location: 

CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA

Panelists:

  • Professor John Holdren, Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University; Co-Director of Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, HKS; former Science Advisor to President Barack Obama and former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
  • Professor Peter Huybers, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
  • Professor Elsie Sunderland, Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Professor Steve Wofsy, Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Chair: Professor Mike McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Chair, Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment... Read more about China and Asia in a Changing Climate: Natural Science for the Non-Scientist

Pages